A Decentralized Self-detection Mechanism to Defend Selfish Behavior in Spray and Wait Protocol

A class of networks provides wireless services that present a promising solution to address technical issues in regions where at the time of transmission, an end-to-end path does not exist betwixt the sender and the receiver. In such networks, a node misbehaves by dropping packets or not forwarding the packets of other nodes even when it has sufficient buffer. The nodes showing this kind of behavior are termed as selfish nodes. These nodes are unwilling to use their own resources (i.e., buffer and power) when they forward the packets of other nodes. Selfish nodes reduce packet delivery ratio and waste system resources, i.e., bandwidth and power, which in turn increases the overhead. In this paper, we present a reputation-based approach that helps to remit the selfish behavior of the network nodes. According to the simulation results, mitigation of selfish nodes leads to high delivery probability and lower overhead ratio.